Status of the Watershed Reports

Click to display interactive map with site data.

Clear Streams, rivers and lakes are the signature resource in the Upper White River region of the Ozarks, providing for unique wildlife, safe drinking water, recreation, economic growth and tourism. It’s not a stretch to say that our region’s quality of life is a direct reflection of the health of our waters. The Status of the Watershed report highlights our water resources by sharing annual water quality data which we collect from a variety of sources including county, city, state and federal agencies, universities, private organizations and volunteers who take regular samples at their local streams and lakes. Because this data comes from many sources, summarizing this information and making accurate comparisons presents a challenge. We have chosen not to describe water quality at individual sites as being “Good” or “Bad”, but instead we compared the sites and identified water quality as being High or Low, relative to all the rest of the data gathered across the upper White River watershed. In other words, sites rated as Low are not necessarily bad, they just have lower water quality than other sites in the region. Red dots on the map and report indicate relatively lower water quality data, yellow dots represent medium water quality and green indicates that the highest water quality data was collected at these sites.